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The Context of Palaeohydrology |
Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, Lewisham Way, New Cross, London S14 6NW, UK
Four aspects are outlined in this introduction to provide a background context for the volume. First, consideration of developments in palaeohydrology provides an opportunity to summarize the way in which the discipline has evolved. This is succeeded by a synopsis of seven prevailing themes which have been evident in the development of palaeohydrology and which have produced a number of outstanding questions. Finally the current approach to global continental palaeohydrology is explained.
Developments
The first international meeting of GLOCOPH (the INQUA Commission on Global Continental Palaeohydrology) held in Southampton in September 1994 occurred 50 years after the first explicit definition of palaeohydrology was made by Leopold & Miller in 1954. Over that 50 years, interest in palaeohydrology was at first somewhat slow to develop, but Schumm in 1965 produced a major paper on Quaternary palaeohydrology in which he suggested that palaeohydrology offered an innovative approach which was capable of further exploration. The fundamental proposal of Schumm’s paper (1965) was that global relationships between run-off and precipitation and also between run-off and sediment yield could be employed to indicate, for different temperature conditions, how changes might occur under different climatic conditions. This was a major breakthrough because it gave a mechanism for indicating the types of change that were possible prior to the availability of estimates of hydrological change obtained from sophisticated computer models. Further developments that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s were eventually summarized in the book by S. A. Schumm (1977) entitled The Fluvial System. That book, in
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